UMass hockey team in need of points when No. 11-ranked Boston University visits Friday

With 11 regular season Hockey East games remaining, the seventh-place University of Massachusetts will try to pick up points in its only game of the weekend, against No. 11-ranked Boston University Friday at 7 p.m.

UMass (9-12-2, 6-9-1 Hockey East) has 13 points in league play. The Minutemen are five behind Merrimack (8-6-2 HE) and just one point ahead of eighth-place Vermont (4-9-4), which plays Boston College. Northeastern (4-10-3 HE) and Maine (3-9-4, HE) lurk with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

BU arrives at the Mullins Center at the other end of the standings. With 21 points, the Terriers (13-9-1, 10-6-1) are tied for second with New Hampshire (10-5-1), two behind first-place Boston College (11-6-1 HE).

Boston University won the first two meetings against UMass 5-2 and 3-2 on Oct. 26 and 27, respectively.

“Our last memory of playing BU is them beating us, so we’re focused in on the things we need to do well in terms of our game,” UMass coach John Micheletto said. “Coming back home I’m sure is going to add a little juice to the environment and our guys play. We know that points are valuable and don’t want them to slip away.”

BU averages a league-high 15.2 penalty minutes per game and is near the bottom of the conference in penalty killing (82.0 percent), giving the Minutemen, who have the league’s No. 2 power play (19.5 percent), a chance to take advantage.

Freshman goalie Matt O’Connor is 7-6-1 with a .910 save percentage and a 2.90 goals against average, while classmate Sean Maguire is 6-3-0 with a 2.34 GAA and a .934 save percentage.

NOTES – Micheletto said junior Troy Power is skating some on his own, but isn’t close to returning.

“He’s skating on his own, not doing anything ridiculous in terms of cutting and changing direction,” Micheletto said.

Redshirting Power isn’t under consideration yet.

“That hasn’t really crossed our mind as of yet. I’d like to get him back down the stretch,” Micheletto said. “We’ll wait to see what the doctors have to say and make those decisions when we have that information.”